Crime & Safety

Watch: Woman Goes Jedi on Thieves

The Florida jewelry store owner grabbed a metal rod and fought back against a group of masked men.

Check out the video at the bottom of this story.

A Lauderhill jewelry store owner admits she didn’t know what she was thinking when a group of masked men entered her shop, broke open a case and began helping themselves to handfuls of gold chains.

Whatever she was thinking, it prompted the woman to pick up a metal rod stowed behind the counter. She then used that rod to strike back – hard – against her attackers.

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“Oh, I hit them many times,” Insuk “Sue” Shimochi, 58, told the Sun-Sentinel.

Surveillance video of the May robbery shows a group of at least five masked men entering the store and Shimochi grabbing the rod and fighting back. One of the men hit Shimochi back with a plastic bin, but that didn’t stop her barrage of strikes.

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Despite her relentless defense of the store, the thieves did manage to get away with a fair amount of merchandise. Shimochi, however, thinks her counter-attacked stopped them from taking more.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she told CBS Miami following the attack. Shimochi has owned the store inside the Lauderhill Mall for 16 years, most of those quiet, the station noted.

While police continue to look for the suspects, who may be connected to other crimes in the community, Shimochi, a native of South Korea, is being heralded as a hero by some.

“My son’s friends say I am a Jedi,” she told the Sun-Sentinel. “But, I was just trying to protect my merchandise.”

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